My main point of anxiety revolved around the neighbors not signing up to bring home a newborn even though we did, and I was really worried someone would say something nasty to us about the noise.

Fortunately, Wesley turned out to be a pretty content little fellow and honestly, he cries more now than he ever did as a newborn. Unexplained crying jags? We had our first around 5 or 6 months and it lasted for about ten minutes and I had no idea what to do. He’d never done it before! Every other time he cried, it was a reasonably easily solved problem. (I had it easy. I know. Trust me when I say I do not take this for granted.)

Back to the post: I feel like the answers in that post are mostly good. You can’t stop a newborn from crying, the parents probably want it to stop more than you do, go buy a white noise machine, etc.

This comment and this one both struck a chord with me, however, because a few people suggested asking the parents to move the baby’s crib in order to mitigate the noise and these people say that’s completely reasonable. I disagree.

I understand that bringing home a baby doesn’t give me the right to disturb neighbors in their own home. I agonized over this for weeks and felt dreadful about even bringing him home because we lived in an apartment.

In our situation, had a neighbor actually complained and asked us to move the crib, I would have scoffed at their faces. We still don’t even own an actual crib, and I am not going to spend extra money (to the tune of several hundred dollars) to buy an actual crib so I can move my brand-new infant from our bedroom with us into the LIVING ROOM so that YOU get a better night’s sleep. I’m sorry, but no.

We are raising Wesley the best way we know how, and right now, that involves co-sleeping and responding quickly when he cries. Acquiescing to a neighbor’s request to relocate my baby’s sleeping quarters would have necessitated a drastic change in our parenting style and there’s no way I would have been okay with that. I can guarantee you that separating me from Wesley would have resulted in more crying, not less.

I guess I’m curious what that person feels a good solution would be. I didn’t (and still don’t) think that I should have to put my life on hold until we manage to live in a single-family dwelling. Surely people bring home babies to apartments (or condos!) all the time?

What say you? Are you in an apartment situation? Did you make a point to be in a house before bringing home a baby? Are we total jerks for not doing that?

• BP was terrible (160/90) when they first took it, so about ten minutes later they re-checked and I’m so glad they did, because it improved a ton (134/82).
• Because it was so high initially and my leg/foot swelling was so bad, the midwife decided to put me on bedrest. Argh! This means I am on the couch or my bed basically 24/7, no going to work, and no grocery shopping or housework or anything. Fortunately, my employer is fine with me working from home to finish out my time until I’m on maternity leave. Yay for flexibility!
• They took a blood sample to do some bloodwork so they have a baseline in case I start going downhill – they can compare it and see what’s going on.

They scheduled me to come back today to recheck everything. From today’s appointment, bad/mediocre news first, good news next:

• I had a bit of protein in my urine, and my bloodwork showed elevated levels of uric acid. I don’t actually know what this means, other than it is not really a good sign. The midwife said neither number was particularly alarming, exactly, just not ideal.
• Because of this, they are having me do the 24-hour urine collect. Boo! I have a fancy brown bottle that I get to fill with my pee and keep in my fridge. Delightful.
• Blood pressure: 130/80! YAY! Bedrest seems to be working.
• I lost two pounds! Also yay!
• Foot swelling is down! I think this is the reason I lost two pounds – it’s all water weight, but since I can move my ankles again I am more than happy to take it.
• Baby has moved head-down! We had the fastest ultrasound ever, on the same ancient machine, in which she pointed out the white lines that were the edges of his skull and that was it. Baby’s heartbeat sounds great.

Final word was that I don’t have preeclampsia, but she wouldn’t be at all surprised if I developed it, so the goal is to have that happen later rather than sooner. They also bumped me up to twice-weekly appointments to keep a close eye on me, so from here on out I’ll go in Tuesdays and Fridays.

Bedrest

Sounds like a picnic, right? Hanging out on the couch all day?

Not so much. I mean, I’m working from home, so technically I am occupied from the hours of 8:30am-5:30pm, but once you’re forced to be on the couch it becomes much less appealing. Plus, I feel fine! It’d almost be easier if I felt “sick” or otherwise in need of 24/7 resting.

Also, you know how your butt hurts after sitting through a long movie? Imagine days and weeks worth of that. Blah!

I’m not really sure how restrictive I’m supposed to be; I’m allowed to get up for bathroom breaks and the occasional shower, but I’m not sure whether or not I can complete simple sewing projects for instance. I forgot to ask today.

(I am totally flouting the rules to attend my baby shower on Saturday. Wouldn’t miss it for the world!)

Remodel

I got a call from our building’s maintenance guy on Monday to let me know that during our annual inspection, they discovered some major issues in the bathroom that they’d like to take care of, and basically they want to remodel our bathroom.

Yes. A full bathroom remodel, on our only bathroom, with me at 35 weeks pregnant, on bedrest, with a baby that may or may not come early due to this whole BP issue. DOES THIS NOT SOUND LIKE THE WORST IDEA EVER?

A guy from the company slated to do the remodel stopped by this morning to assess the situation and determine his price and timeline. They need to rip up the floor, fix some nails that are migrating upward, replace the floor, tear out the tile in the shower, fix some squishiness in the walls, re-do the tub surround, and possibly replace the sink.

It was at this point I was told that it would take THREE WEEKS to complete the work. Everyone I’ve talked to has encouraged me to go for it before the baby arrives rather than after, since you don’t want to renovate a bathroom with a newborn in tow, but GOOD GRIEF. I also do not want to be 35+ weeks pregnant and without a bathroom for nearly a month.

ARGH.

At this point, I am waiting to hear back from Maintenance Steve with the landlord’s response to the remodeling company’s assessment and bid. If they decide to go ahead with it, I am going to ask about being put up in a hotel. I’m on bedrest so I can rest from anywhere, but I need a bathroom. This is non-negotiable.

Impeccable timing, no?

I’m still having a fair amount of round ligament pain. Lame. It’s not debilitating or anything but if I’ve been sitting for a while and stand up, I look about 300 years old for the first few steps until my body adjusts to this newfangled thing called “walking.”

I received my shipment of my newborn diapers and OMG SO CUTE. Tiny little diaper covers!

This week’s comparison picture:

It… does not really look different. I actually think it might be the photo or my outfit or something because I am pretty sure I am noticeably bigger, but I took today’s pictures in a rush to leave for work this morning. Baby is about 5.5 inches long, or as big as a bell pepper. This does not sound adorable to me because I loathe bell peppers but perhaps someone will find this cute. Last week was a turnip, which really cracked me up.

Oh! Also! My ultrasound appointment is scheduled for November 23rd, in the morning, so here’s hoping Baby cooperates and we find out the sex! It will be a Thanksgiving week surprise. (Baby just kicked. He/she says hello.)

Overall, this week has been pretty normal baby-wise and pretty crap other-wise. Our bathroom light decided to fail over the weekend so we called in a maintenance request on Monday, because it was obviously an electrical issue and not a lightbulb issue. We didn’t hear back. Tuesday came and I got a call from the property management company, which I thought was kind of weird since Daniel made the maintenance call, but my phone was on the verge of death so I let it go to voicemail and figured I’d listen and then have Daniel call them back.

My voicemail revealed that they called to let us know that unusually, they did not receive our rent this month.

I could have died.

WHAT.

This is the ONE and ONLY time this has ever happened to me: THE CHECK GOT LOST IN THE MAIL. I am not making this up. It’d be like if your dog really did eat your homework – it just screams HELLO I AM LYING. I swear to effing everything that I mailed it on Nov 2, because I had to beg a stamp off my co-workers because I realized once I made it to work that I forgot to mail it the past Friday.

When Daniel talked to them they didn’t sound like they were going to charge us the late-rent fee but I am not 100% sure on that. They did note that it was very weird to not have received our check (we’ve been here for 2.5 years and haven’t ever been late) and we promised to send another right away, which I did today. (I tried to yesterday but realized when I got home and the envelope was still in the mailbox that there is no mail on holidays.)

GAH. Talk about stress.

Then today, we had a big company meeting at work, and yes, it was that kind of meeting. I still have a job. This is obviously great. But instead of receiving raises for next year, or not receiving raises at all, we are receiving the option of either a 2% deferred pay cut or 5 unpaid furlough days off. The “deferred” apparently means that we are in essence “loaning” that amount of our salary to the company for 2010, and we will get it paid back in 2011. The example they gave was if you started with $1000 this year, next year (2010) you’d make $980, and the year after (2011) you’d make $1020, which is the amount you started with plus the backpay from 2010. If you take the furlough days there is no backpay option, you just take them and that’s that.

I haven’t decided yet what I want to do. My maternity leave will occur next year during the cuts, so I could either choose to have money come in the next year or an extra week home with my baby. AGONIZING. On one hand, we could totally use the money, because hello, we are not rich and also there will be a new baby and hospital bills. On the other hand, what kind of horrible unfit parent would I be to choose money over an extra (unpaid) week with my child? Argh. The pay cut actually seems like the better option so far in terms of long-term planning, but I am going to do some math and work out what makes sense for us. I assume we have to choose by the end of the year.

On the plus side, our bathroom light got fixed today because I received another call from the property management company that I was able to answer, and they offered to send someone by this morning. So I don’t have to do my hair and makeup in the dark anymore like I’ve been doing all week.

Fall, however, Fall I can get behind. It’s still warm-ish, but you can start wearing skirts with boots and maybe a sweater and if you’re really adventurous, you can start busting out your winter mittens and hats for chilly mornings. It’s a lovely mix of the best parts of Summer and Winter.

Except for the spiders. I hate the spiders.

They emerge juuuust as soon as it starts cooling down a bit and they take up residence in the bushes and railings and light fixture around our building’s front door. This makes entering and exiting somewhat problematic, like the other day when I came home and had to call Daniel to let me in the back door because some stupid fat spider built a web across half of the stairs and I didn’t want to chance squeezing by it lest it get stuck to me. *shudder*

Fortunately by the time I left for work the next morning, it had moved (or had been moved by someone) and I didn’t have to leave through the back door.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about the spiders above our door or how we solved that problem, but that one was kind of an isolated (yet horrifying) specimen. There are smaller ones now but there are more of them and I am afraid they are going to get larger and more bold.

FREAKS ME RIGHT OUT.

I managed to score a cute, simple little lamp at Target the other day, as well as a much-needed curtain rod. I am still getting used to our curtains, but it’s nice to finally have them up.

About a week and a half ago, I ordered a narrow small side table to sit in between the wall and the couch and I’m still waiting for it to arrive. I don’t totally trust the website. Let’s all hope my table makes it to me safely. And soon. I have some heathered gray felt coasters from Etsy that I’d like to set on it. I am not a crazy coaster person, I promise, but I do think they look nice sometimes.

As you can see over on Flickr, I managed to get our plants repotted! I came close to killing our jade plant on accident and, while I’m still not sure what I did wrong, I’m hoping its new environment will encourage it to keep up the fight. The other plants look happy in their new homes.

News on the WTF front:

This could be a whole entry unto itself, but long story short, if I would have actually looked into it, I could have put Daniel on my health insurance aaaaages ago. Instead, I listened to what I was told at work (“No, marriage is not a qualifying event!”) and waited it out until the next Open Enrollment session. I decided to prove a point and email my healthcare provider about this qualifying event business and was told I was correct. HA.

Also, WHY IS HEALTHCARE SO EXPENSIVE? Ugh. I don’t actually know how much I pay for mine, but GOOD GRIEF adding Daniel is a lot of dollars.

News on the snowboarding front:

I have still only gone once so far, but I expect to end up there on Saturday. Woo-hoo!

News on the technology front:

The Netflix video player for Xbox is SO. AWESOME. We’ve been using it to watch documentaries from PBS, The History Channel, and other lovely educational things. I especially enjoyed the one about ocean life. It had all sorts of cephalopods and showed how they can change their colors at will and it was amazing! Loving cephalopods at the moment.

I am also glad that WPMU 2.7 is finally out! I can’t wait to upgrade some of our client sites running it.

…aaand that’s about all that’s going on with me. I can’t believe we’re almost into February!